![]() If you're using Windows 8, Windows 7, or an earlier version of Windows, you may wish to uncheck all the requested file associations during the installation process.īy default, there are only two installed visualizer plugins, Advanced Visualization Studio (a collection of retro visualizations from the early days) and MilkDrop. If you're using Windows 10 or Windows 11, you don't have to worry about Winamp setting file associations as how file associations are set changed with Windows 10. Installation is straightforward, just run the installer. You can head over to the Winamp website, scroll down, and look for the download button among all the stuff on the page and click the download button-which is a bit of a hassle given the site's laggy design-or you can hop right into the download directory here and grab the latest version. We can't exactly have a Winamp nostalgia party without Winamp, now can we? You can grab a copy directly from the source in one of two ways. Let's dig in with the start-to-finish list of steps to get your visualizer up and running. In short, if the audio is coming into, passing through, or produced by your Windows PC, Winamp can capture it and visualize it. If you want the visualizer to react to not just the music at a party but the noise level and energy of the party itself, for example, you could run the visualizer off a microphone feed instead of the speaker feed. That includes music you play on Spotify or YouTube, any local audio files, and even the audio input from a microphone. The method we're about to outline will allow you to take any audio input your Windows computer can pull in and output it as a Winamp visualization. ![]() With the history we just covered in mind, it's no wonder that all these years later, people still have a soft spot for Geiss and other early Winamp music visualizers.įortunately, if you wish you could enjoy some of those classic Winamp visualizations alongside your modern music collection without resorting to rebuilding your Spotify playlist from a mish-mash of ripped MP3 files, you're in luck.īy leveraging a hidden and lesser-known function in Winamp, we can pull in audio from external sources and pass it through the Winamp system-which means the audio visualizer plugins can process it and give us the colorful light show we crave.īetter yet, we're not just limited to a specific streaming audio source or even internet-based audio sources at all. We recommend setting the video quality to 1080p for the full effect. Below is a sample video we plucked off YouTube where a fan of the Milkdrop visualizer recorded the output while playing a progressive house playlist. The pictures we've included are certainly interesting to look at, but if a picture is worth a thousand words in the case of music visualizers, a video is worth even more. The Geiss plugin was downloaded by millions of Winamp fans and proved to be so popular that Nullsoft, the company behind Winamp, hired Ryan to write even more music visualizer plugins, including a much more powerful followup to Geiss called Milkdrop. ![]() We can say with confidence quite a few people-author included-listened to a lot of techno in the early 2000s with that as a visual backdrop. The liquid metal flow and waveform overlay, seen in the screenshot above, was among the various modes Geiss would play in and readily identifiable to fans of the plugin. That same year programmer Ryan Geiss created the eponymous Geiss plugin for Winamp. Among the first plugins that shipped with the updated version were two input plugins and a music visualizer plugin. At that point, the simple little MP3 player had been redesigned to be a general-purpose audio player that, crucial to our discussion here, now supported plugins. ![]() Where things got more interesting is with the release of Winamp 1.90 in early 1998. The first version, 0.20, wasn't much to look at as it was an ultra-sleek affair, little much more than a compact toolbar used to load, start, and stop MP3 playback. Winamp was first released back in 1997 as a very simple freeware MP3 player for Windows-the name is a portmanteau of Windows and AMP, or "Advanced Multimedia Products," the MP3 engine the app was built on. ![]() But for those of you that opened this article out of general curiosity and not nostalgia, a brief review is in order. If you're a reader of a certain age, Winamp visualizations need no introduction, and you're already here for that sweet, sweet nostalgia fix. ![]()
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